I found this blog about flarfing: http://jim-murdoch.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-to-write-flarf.html
I’m going to try to do the exercise in the blog: Exercise: Google Sculpting. Let me know what you guys think!!
Open a new document in a word processor and then open a web browser. Using the two poems by K. Silem Mohammad in your course packet as examples, type a phrase (or phrases) or a list of several search terms* into the Google search bar. Now look at the excerpts from each search result (the text beneath each link), copy words or phrases from it, and paste them into the document open in your word processor. You will continue in this fashion until you have a fairly long list (a page or so at least) of selected phrases to work with.
Line from Mohammad I am working with: “I’m a danger to everyone”
Why don’t you just lock me up and throw away the key?
“My boy, where did you hear such nonsense?”
Just rumors…
That’s not the reason I summoned you here
“He remade himself” “She told me the truth”
…None of that sleek, alley-cat charm.
YOU CAN TAKE THE CUFFS OFF
I’m sure you know the old Scottish saying
Killing the soil it grows in… nothing left but ashes
Only I can chance myself
Not shocks and liver powder
I’m a major bitch… because men aren’t supposed to cry
I don’t want to disturb your ritual- Don’t be the prisoner of marzipan.
That butterfly was right…A secretary’s delight
I’m so afraid of knives
Who has had a rose shaped hole in her heart?
I’ve washed my hands… it sent chills of horror down the spine of respectable society
All of these are common stalking behaviors for that hitch-hiking demon…
Hi Derek- This is a very cool exercise that has such pedagogical potential! I could ask my students doing a research paper to create a poem similar to this. Maybe using phrases from their thesis statement? Not only would they determine whether or not their thesis was precise enough, but it would also really zoom in on the methodology behind search dialogue and phrasing. I’m going to check out the blog posting as well, but I see how one phrase can provide a wide-range of results! Thank you.
I did have one question- you put the Mohammad quote in quotes, but did you use quotes when searching? I feel your results would be very different – just curious!
-Amanda W.
Hi Amanda,
I’m so glad you see potential value in an activity like this. I saw it from a creative writing aspect but you point out that is has value in research writing as well!
To answer your question, I did not use the quotation marks in my search… but most of my results were quotes from characters in google books. It’s something that someone would say, it’s not a generic term like deer head or dove feather or iced drink. I think the quotation marks could really change results in searches like that.
And do we reshuffle and select or take the results as they come, in sequence, with no editing?
I did not reshuffle the results.
I edited a few of the phrases but kept most of it intact.
Examples:
Killing the soil it grows in… nothing left but ashes (This had something else in it about a weird plant alien thing I think?)
Only I can chance myself (I think this was a typo, but I kept it, I like it)
Not shocks and liver powder (There was more context to this, not sure what it was)
I don’t want to disturb your ritual- Don’t be the prisoner of marzipan (Harry Potter and the prisoner of marzipan instead of Azkaban, I removed Harry Potter because it just did not fit with the flow I was going for)
I also combined a few lines from different sources to create some more powerful lines.
Examples:
“He remade himself” “She told me the truth”
I’m a major bitch… because men aren’t supposed to cry
I don’t want to disturb your ritual- Don’t be the prisoner of marzipan.
That butterfly was right…A secretary’s delight
I’ve washed my hands… it sent chills of horror down the spine of respectable society